Wild Bill's Troubles

From Buenos Aires' blatantly Nazi El Pampero last week came a tale about Colonel William Joseph Donovan and his missing wallet and passport. El Pampero's two-column dispatch from Washington declared: "The Department of State ordered [Donovan's] immediate return . . . because he dishonored his military uniform and sullied his diplomatic status by getting himself into a state of complete drunkenness in a Sofia cabaret, where he lost his wallet and a valise containing important documents. Upon his return to the U. S. he will be arraigned before the Special Court. Furthermore, the State Department immediately ordered interruption of his trip, forbidding him to visit Switzerland and France. . . ."

While U. S. Ambassador to Argentina Norman Armour called on the Foreign Office in Buenos Aires to deliver an informal protest, Wild Bill was running into more trouble. Just before he boarded the train in Ankara for the trip through Syria to Jerusalem, a French Embassy official arrived at the station, told him the Syrian visa on his new passport had been canceled. By the time Wild Bill had detoured to Jerusalem by way of Cyprus, then on to Cairo, Vichy explained: "We don't want any foreigners going through Syria. . . . We certainly hope Colonel Donovan will riot take the refusal personally as an insult." What Vichy particularly did not want was a U. S. military observer poking about its Near East military dispositions, still an unpredictable cracker in any Balkan fireworks.

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